Rio Ferdinand's decision to blow the whole Wag phenomenon to smithereens here yesterday, however belated it may have been, felt like a genuinely cathartic event. Two years after the England squad bade farewell to the paparazzi and slunk out of their seven-star accommodation in Baden-Baden with wives, girlfriends and container-loads of shopping bags in tow, the acting captain finally called it what it was: a circus. "If I'm very honest," he said, "I think we got caught up in the whole celebrity thing." It was, he said, more like taking part in a theatrical performance than a football tournament. With that courageous admission, years of denial came to an end.

The deeper significance of his words can be found in the way they harmonise with the tone and subtext of recent statements from his fellow squad members. In former times, 11 goals and a maximum nine points from three qualifying matches would have induced the squad to convey the impression that victory in the World Cup final itself was a virtual inevitability. A hat-trick of victories would have generated enough gaseous self-esteem to float a squadron of hot-air balloons.

In recent days, however, there has been a change of tone, exemplified by the latest turn in the long-standing debate over the ability of Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard to blend their talents in England's midfield - something Fabio Capello himself described yesterday as a "leitmotif" of the team's recent campaigns. After their latest inconclusive display in Saturday's defeat of Kazakhstan, with its thoroughly deceptive scoreline, Gerrard came clean.

"Me and Frank talk regularly and, believe me, there's no one trying harder to make this work than us," he said. "We'll hold our hands up and say we don't reproduce our club form often enough for England, but we'll keep working hard to make it happen." He was equally blunt about his failure as an individual to make a mark in an England shirt. "Fabio speaks with me before each game and says he wants me to emulate my Liverpool form. That's also what I want, but it's not happening."

That unexpected confession is one of several pieces of evidence suggesting that the debacle of the Euro 2008 campaign has finally imbued the current generation of England players with the understanding that they cannot prosper in international football by sitting back and relying solely on reputations forged in the Premier League to vanquish opponents sometimes worth only a fraction of their own market value. Back in the summer of 2006, Lampard was insisting that, the evidence of results and performances notwithstanding, England had "deserved" to go further than the quarter-finals of the World Cup. Now they may at last have been disabused of an unquestioning belief in their entitlement to success.

The humiliation that reached its nadir in defeat by Croatia at Wembley a year ago seems finally to have achieved what hundreds of thousands of words of criticism could not: it has brought them down to earth. It may be significant that, here in Minsk, England's millionaire footballers are staying not in their customary luxurious quarters but in a relatively modest chain hotel close to the stadium in which tonight's match will be played.

Ferdinand has always been a good talker, although sometimes his deeds appear to have contradicted his words, and yesterday he took advantage of his temporary status as John Terry's understudy to deliver what may have been the most significant message by a member of the England camp since Alf Ramsey issued the famous statement of his belief that his players would win the 1966 World Cup.

If this were just the expression of one man's opinion, it would be no more than mildly interesting. The impression, however, is that under their new coach, a disciplinarian from the north-east of Italy, where characters are hewn from granite, England are indeed emerging from the cocoon of self-esteem that insulated them from reality in the last years of the Eriksson regime, and that Ferdinand's seemingly impromptu statement - delivered in response to questions at the formal pre-match press conference - does indeed represent a sentiment shared by the squad's senior members.

Capello's neo-realist Englishmen seem disinclined to take their recent 4-1 and 5-1 victories at face value. Instead of rejoicing, they would rather expose and examine the flaws behind the glittering scorelines. In fact the greatest encouragement from Saturday's victory over Kazakhstan came not from their five second-half goals but from a stream of admissions that the performances have yet to achieve a satisfactory standard.

Back in February, on the eve of his first match, a friendly against Switzerland, Capello outlined his credo. "What I will try to pass on to the team, especially, is to regain their winning mentality by being confident in their own resources and by playing bravely," he said. "I believe we need to leave the past behind. We need a positive mindset and to look ahead."

Part of that positive mindset seems to have been the acquisition of an ability to recognise and accept their manifold faults. Barely an hour after Saturday's laboured victory, Lampard led a chorus of experienced players, including David Beckham and Emile Heskey, who refused to indulge in premature euphoria.

"It wasn't by any means the finished article or performance," Lampard said, "but we're on the road to recovery. Croatia was a big step. Today was a different kind of game, different pressure, going out there to play against a team we were expected to beat quite easily, and we've done it. Ideally, an early goal would be beneficial, but it didn't come. We plugged away. We played decently in the first half, lacking a bit of cutting edge around the box, got there or thereabouts quite a lot without finishing it off. In the second half we relaxed a little bit and the goals started to flow. So, we look forward now."

Ferdinand was careful to say, after expressing his belief in a better future under the "very, very professional" new regime put in place by Capello, that he hoped he wasn't speaking too soon. But he had already done enough. In a conference room in the Stalinist Palace of the Republic, which dominates Minsk's Oktyabrskaya, or October Square, he had launched England's own October revolution.